


Hear Me

by doctortrekkie



Series: Break Me Down and Build Me Up [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Chrom!Inigo, Gen, Lucina angsts about this fact, Pre-Canon, Virion!Gerome, bad timeline, they're all just kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 22:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15738723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctortrekkie/pseuds/doctortrekkie
Summary: War is coming, and there seems to be no denying the fact. Princess Lucina bears a burden she never wished, but shoulders it for the sake of her baby brother and everyone else depending on her.(Takes place about six years before the beginning of Whatever It Takes, but can be read as a standalone.)





	Hear Me

**Author's Note:**

> I was a bit stuck on my current chapter of Whatever It Takes, so I threw out this little piece of angst for y'all. It does take place in the WIT universe but since it's so far before it can definitely be read as a standalone in the canon timeline. Also, while Gerome/Lucina is a thing in WIT, they're twelve and thirteen in this fic so it doesn't have to be read romantically either.

_Can nobody hear me? I’ve got a lot that’s on my mind..._

 

A shout sounded from the courtyard of Ylisstol Palace, followed quickly by yelp. Though Princess Lucina could not make out the words, she could make an educated guess as to what they meant. Her cousin would have yelled one of his ‘special moves,’ whilst her younger brother would have cried out in surprise and his tried his best to counter. It looked like Inigo succeeded momentarily, but his skill was still lacking, and it wasn’t long before Owain was clashing with him again.

 _It’s still a game to them,_ Lucina thought bitterly, watching the boys’ wooden blades come together again. Swordsmanship was still little more than an art to be learned as a duty, a way to keep fit and blow off steam. It was not yet the skill that would make the difference between their living and dying.

And gods, she prayed it never would be.

Lucina curled up tighter on the window seat, a pillow clutched to her chest even as her elbow brushed against Falchion’s hilt.

“Lucina?”

She took a shuddering breath that she did her best to hide.

It was a long moment before Gerome’s voice reached her again—so long she almost started wondering if he’d left. “...Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine,” she murmured, only turning just enough to catch him from the corner of her eyes when he took the edge of the seat by her feet. Softly, she let out a sigh. “I just… just look at them. They’re just boys.”

“We are hardly older than them ourselves, Lucina,” Gerome pointed out.

And that hurt even worse—to see Gerome in armor clearly fashioned for someone both broader and taller than his twelve-year frame could ever match, to try and glimpse past the mask he’d taken to wearing since his mother’s death. Her stockinged toes curled at the thought that her best friend needed to hide even from her now.

“Inigo can wield Falchion,” she murmured, watching as Owain managed to neatly disarm his cousin down below. Inigo made a cross face that had Lucina’s lips quirking, before pointing behind Owain in a clear distraction technique that the other boy actually fell for. In that moment of opportunity, Inigo launched at him and tackled, practice swords forgotten as they tussled in the dirt. Shrieks and laughter wound up to Lucina’s ears.

Gerome made a soft ‘hmph.’ “A surprise, but not an altogether unpleasant one. An asset to have another to take it up should you fall.”

“That’s what I told him,” Lucina replied, not even bothering to reprimand his glib speaking of her own death. “He didn’t much appreciate the thought.” The boys’ antics tapered off as they got to their feet, but she couldn’t tell who had been the victor. “I never want this war to become Inigo and Owain’s war.”

“I’m sure our parents never wished this to become Lucina and Gerome’s war, either,” Gerome pointed out. “Yet here we both are.”

 _Here they were._ Here stood Lucina, with a divine sword laid against hips that were still childishly narrow. Here stood Gerome, with no connection the the land of his birth far across the sea but the wyvern who had brought him away from it. Here they _both_ stood, bereft their parents in the world that had too quickly turned too cruel.

Her movement was hesitant and choppy, but for just a moment she reached over and squeezed his gloved hand with hers. His expression remained blank and unreadable behind his mask, but…

She knew.

“And we will win it,” she whispered, nodding to the window. “For them.”

If only she’d realized just how hard to keep that vow would be.


End file.
